Mental health is an increasing concern on college campuses across the country. And, as director of University Counseling Services (UCS), Barry Schreier knows how critical it is for students to remember “UMatter at UIowa.”

Schreier has been director of the UCS, which provides a variety of counseling services, outreach, and training for UI students, since July. He’s come full circle professionally, having done his pre-doctoral internship at UCS in 1992–1993, and says he feels lucky to be back on campus helping make a difference.  

Schreier chatted with Iowa Now about his vision for UCS and how parents, family members, and friends can help support students—especially at high stress times like the end of the semester.

What attracted you to return to the University of Iowa and UCS?

It’s meaningful for me to return to UCS to perhaps finish my campus mental health career in the same exact place it started. The UCS was a tier-one counseling center nationally when I was first here, in terms of its services, and is a tier-one counseling center nationally now.

UCS staff are highly skilled clinically, highly sensitive to this generation’s needs, and are multiculturally competent. They’re also well-known nationally due to the multiple national leadership positions they hold and have held in the profession of campus mental health. In addition, UCS staff contribute to the national discourse on mental health via research, publishing, and national presentations. The UCS is a solid counseling center only needing to improve itself. These all are factors my colleague directors look for in positions, and I am the one who is lucky to be here in this one—oh yes, and Iowans are truly the nicest people around!

What does UCS offer to students?

Student mental health issues have become increasingly complex and severe in the last 10 years, due, in part, to increases in the stress and demands on students, increases in concern about one’s safety in the world, and diminished mental health service systems overall. As such, the UCS provides myriad services to meet the complex needs of UI students and conceptualizes those services in three levels.

Our primary services are designed to prevent issues from ever becoming problems. UCS staff engage in prevention work through psychoeducational programming and training across campus on such topics as anxiety management, mindfulness, recognizing depression, suicide prevention, first responder intervention, students in distress, perfectionism, and procrastination.

Our secondary services are designed to intervene early in the development of problems and include assessment and evaluation, individual counseling, group counseling, brief intervention, case management, psychiatric services, and more. 

Our tertiary services are designed to intervene when crisis occurs to prevent the contagion of crisis from spreading. These include critical incident stress debriefing, participation on campus threat assessment, and community-based mental health first aid when tragedy strikes.

What are your priorities for the UCS?

The UCS has several goals:

• Provide state-of-the-art clinical service in line with the evolving mental health needs of the UI student body
• Increase the amount of access and the immediacy of access to UCS services
• Develop greater training opportunities for staff and faculty who often are first responders to student concerns
• Develop greater focus on parents and families as key stakeholders in student wellness
• Engage in more proactive outreach efforts to proactively frame the conversation about mental health on the UI campus
• Support the academic mission of the university via the UCS training program assisting regional and national academic programs in meeting student matriculation needs through practicum and internship placements
• Brand the UCS with increased presence on social media, as well as modernize the UCS campus image to more appeal to students
• Provide greater partnership opportunities for undergraduate students to be involved with the UCS through collaborating with student organizations, serving on advisory boards, and actively engaging with student government
• Increase collaborative efforts by conjoining UCS mental health expertise with the expertise of campus partners in their communities. As we like to say, “If mental health is a community concern, it must be a community response.”
• Provide staff with continued education so clinical services are state of the art for the ever-expanding and increasingly complex mental health needs of the UI student body
• Work really hard, still have a good time, and be sure to get home at a reasonable hour!
 

What are the most common student concerns/stressors and how those have changed over the years?

Two decades ago, relationship problems were the No. 1 presenting concern at a campus counseling center. This year, they’re sixth.

The two top presenting concerns today at campus counseling centers are diagnosable anxiety and diagnosable depression. Suicide is the No. 2 killer of college students in the U.S., averaging 1000–1200 deaths annually. Student suicide is an epidemic and not enough can be done.

What is one of the most important things you want students to know?

The UI has numerous support and treatment services, and the only reason they won’t work is too many students do not access them, hold stigma and shame about seeking help, and/or fail to recognize the need for help in themselves and in those around them. We have the motto “UMatter at UIowa,” and we could not be any more serious about this. 

What can parents do to best support their student(s)?

Parents and families are key stakeholders in student lives. The UCS wants parents and families to remember that they are often the people who initially recognize signs students are beginning to have trouble. We encourage parents to contact us!

It’s valuable to consult the UCS website to learn about our services, learn how to access our services, and learn the initial signs to watch for when their students are struggling. The UCS looks to parents and families to be active collaborators to let us know when they feel their students are having difficulty so the UCS can consult with them and share options for responding.

Parents and families can also consider donating to the UCS.

What do you do in your free time?

Free time? Who has free time? OK, more seriously, so we’re not encouraging our students to engage in a work-life balance we do not engage in ourselves; I do keep a rich personal life. My partner of 25 years and I are avid cyclers. We are what I like to call, “voracious consumers of our local environs.” This means we are out on day trips as often as possible. Despite having only lived in Iowa for several months, we have visited all corners of the state already. We are active in the theater and we will most assuredly get involved in the Iowa Caucuses. We are also raising two extremely spoiled and demanding black cats.

You once opened a candy store. What was the experience like, and what is your favorite candy?

After nearly 25 years in campus mental health, I took time off to pursue an entrepreneurial dream of opening and owning my own candy store. As I like to say, “I may not always be good at something, but I will always be fearless.”

My partner and I opened “Sweet Emotions Candy: Candy for Your Edible Complex” in Storrs, Connecticut, across from the University of Connecticut campus. And, as it turned out, we were not only fearless in making the leap, but we turned out to also be really good at it. With the shop on a firm foundation, we sold the shop to a dear friend who continues to run it—now in its fourth year!

My favorite candy is any candy which has sugar in it, which means...well, you know what that means!